Google Chrome has drafted in none other than Hatsune Miku to tout its benefits to computer users in Japan and beyond, with the latest Chrome advertising campaign carrying a video featuring the world’s foremost virtual diva.

Her video:

The campaign features artists from various countries, putting Miku amidst such distinguished company as Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber.

Japan’s browser market is generally held to reflect the depressingly backwards nature of the Japanese Internet (as anyone exposed to the cutting edge 1980s design of such sites as 2ch, or the HTML disaster zones of huge blogging platforms like FC2, can readily attest) – Internet Explorer still maintains a stable 50% share, much higher than in other developed markets.

IE9 is not that bad. But I prefer Firefox and Opera. Chrome may be good but I don't know if I trust Google that much anymore. Not that other companies don't collect data but the issue with Google is that it is far more important to their business model than, say, Microsoft, which actually sells and profits from products they market.

Chrome is good, but it saps up the memory like crazy. I can't put up more than 5 windows before the computer spazzes out. Firefox is the best for me, but it can't run media as well as Internet Explorer.

I think anybody who has browsed through Japanese sites for a long time would probably understand that the websites themselves are very ancient-styled. It's like... how the American Internet was before my time on Earth. Come on Japan.

@01:00
On my parents' computer and I cannot honestly determine weather Firefox or Chrome run smoother. Being a low memory system, I went with FF simply because it doesn't require you to explicitly uncheck the "please spy on me" checkboxes.

Honestly, Japanese sites seem to be much more advanced now. While I would say this was true in 2007, now they are like how our sites were in 2007 (blogs with nice graphics and gradients, but little flash). Though it may seem ghetto, I actually prefer the old-style over tons of flash and facebook/twitter crap.

IE9 still has the worst standard compliance compared to all the modern browsers.
It may not mean much to you, but to web developers it's a maintenance nightmare and it takes away valuable development time that could have otherwise gone into features of your favorite websites.

This discussion doesn't belong here, and I actually just want to oggle at Miku, but I can't just let this provocation slide.

I gladly use tables for all my layouting. Why? Because it works, always - as opposed to floating divs which make precise, pixel-accurate adjustments completely impossible if you want to support many browsers without completely retarded HTML and CSS browser switching. Semantic structuring can just kiss my ass. I'm a fierce opponent of the semantic web anyway.

The main problem here is that today's internet is all about applications, not documents. In this light the whole concept behind HTML is outdated and CSS is making matters worse because it's (barely) curing something that should actually just die in the first place.

Browsers should all just become X11 clients and be done with. That's why I'm so exited about the HTML5 canvas tag, as it'll allow something similar.

Although it has been years since I last time checked, but great many Japanese newspapers also have stuck to the looks (the decent) Western newspapers abandoned decades ago: Pages full of nothing but chapter after chapter of small text, with a couple, if any, small low quality pictures mixed in. The photos naturally won't break the "neat" ordering of the text, gods be praised.

Japanese internet users are very used to the poor appearance; international sites don't actually score all that high in the rankings when compared to domestic sites. And since hackjobs will work for ¥1000 per hour or less, whereas an actual programmer (even entry-level) will set you back about twice that. And hiring a professional designer is out of the question, as long as the Japanese internet-going public accepts the current crappy state of affairs.

I get what you're saying, but at the same time this is the first time I've seen someone actually get it right.
Toyota failed. Bacon wrapped hotdog? wtf? but this actually shows EXACTLY what the vocaloid culture is about. Connecting people around the world through music.